The following editorial originally appeared in The Olympian:
Last year, a group calling itself the Thurston Voter Research Project knocked on a lot of doors and questioned people about their voter registration. They described this effort as “ground-truthing the voter rolls.” They reportedly wore badges that said “Thurston County,” though they were not employed by or associated with the county.
They thought they’d found some fraud when people said no one at their address matched the name on the voter rolls. But when the Thurston County Auditor’s office went through their entire list of questionable registrants and addresses, they found that many of the voters registered at those addresses were military voters who must use their last local address when they are away on active duty. Others were inactive voters or voters who had recently moved and updated their addresses.
Not a single incidence of fraud was found.
We wonder how many of the people who participated in the Voter Research Project survey teams were disappointed not to find any fraud, and how many were relieved. Those who were disappointed will undoubtedly maintain suspicions about other aspects of our voting system — suspicions that are unfounded.
The Olympian’s editorial board recently toured the Thurston County ballot processing center. The Auditor’s Office provides tours to anyone interested in learning more about election administration. The center also is open to observers, and ballot processing is streamed online during an election.
At every stage of the process there are safeguards, security and transparency.
Perhaps the most important safeguard is that every voter signature is checked by people who are trained by the Washington State Patrol to spot forgeries. If a ballot signature doesn’t match the signature on file, the voter receives a letter asking them to sign a form and return it before an election is certified.
We have an election system worthy of trust and admiration.
Yet in spite of that, the myth of widespread voting fraud spreads and lingers like a bad smell in counties across our state. It doesn’t seem to matter that our vote-by-mail system is a national model for safety, convenience and integrity.
Nor does it seem to matter that ballot processing and counting machines are never connected to the internet and therefore not hackable.
We wish we could dismiss all the election fraud allegations as irrelevant, tinfoil hat paranoia. But the national epidemic of skepticism is a clear and present danger to our civic health.
Democracy is a system built on faith — faith that people are capable of self-government, faith that self-government is the best guarantor of our freedom and dignity, and faith that, with constant vigilance, we can and will sustain it.
Sowing unwarranted distrust in election integrity undermines that faith, and is therefore an insidious form of treason.
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